Leaving Best Buy and Tiffany’s in the dust even with a long list of apparent problems seems auspicious for Apple’s future: with the bugs squashed, imagine the subsequent results ….

My recent visit to a store was to buy an iPhone case. I walked in, was greeted and took a few seconds to get my bearings. Walked to the back where the tower of cases were and took about 5 minutes to choose. No one was helping me, and I really didn’t need it…. until it came time to checkout. I stood in the middle of the floor, looking for a staff member that was not busy, or the Genius Bar to clear up. Finally an employee noticed me and ushered me over to the Genius Bar, where I had to excuse myself to those sitting there so I could get to the POS.

There is no obvious “wait here for the next available employee to help you” location, so customers are expected to wander around in search of an available employee, or interrupt one that is already helping someone.

I think this is a poor implementation and I can’t see how the stores will manage a flood of customers for any big product release in the future. The free-flowing store layout needs a little bit more order for optimal efficiency.

I mean I disagreed with one element. One other person didn’t see the point. Certainly there’s not a tizzy evident on this comment thread…

People, this is called an “opinion piece.” Chris, the author, thinks these things didn’t do so well in Apple’s retail space. By all means you are 100% free to disagree with every single item, but settle down folks! It’s one man’s thoughts. No need to get in a tizzy about it.

Not defending anyone/anything, just thinking it’s an interesting piece that looks back on, say, lessons learned. Apple can learn from mistakes, too (assuming you’re willing to acknowledge the possibility of the premise).

Keith

Is that kind of like the quote attributed to Yogi Berra “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”?

Last I saw, AAPL said they had over a half-million subscribers to their One to One program.

Their problem was simply one of space and time. Not an absence of success.

That having been said, since Apple retail stores sales per square foot is $3000 to $4000+ (depending upon whose estimate you believe), of course they tried to move One to One stuff online.

Keith